Ninth Court: GoDaddy gone from 'revenge porn' suit

By Beth Rankin

Updated 10:16 pm, Thursday, April 10, 2014

Photo: Guiseppe Barranco, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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From left, Hollie Toups, 32, Marianna Taschinger, 22, and Kelly Hinson, 27, are among more than 20 Southeast Texan women to join in a class action lawsuit against a 'revenge porn' website that allows anonymous users to post intimate pictures of the women without their consent.
Photo taken Friday, January 18, 2013
Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise less

From left, Hollie Toups, 32, Marianna Taschinger, 22, and Kelly Hinson, 27, are among more than 20 Southeast Texan women to join in a class action lawsuit against a 'revenge porn' website that allows anonymous ... more

Photo: Guiseppe Barranco, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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John Morgan, center, speaks to his clients about their lawsuit against Hunter Thomas Taylor at the Orange County Courthouse on Tuesday. Hunter is accused of posting nude photos of the plaintiffs on the website Texxxan.com.
Photo taken Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise less

John Morgan, center, speaks to his clients about their lawsuit against Hunter Thomas Taylor at the Orange County Courthouse on Tuesday. Hunter is accused of posting nude photos of the plaintiffs on the website ... more

Photo: Guiseppe Barranco, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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Hollie Toups, 32, said she got 'Let it be' tattooed on her arm after finding her picture on a revenge porn website.
Photo taken Friday, January 18, 2013
Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise

Hollie Toups, 32, said she got 'Let it be' tattooed on her arm after finding her picture on a revenge porn website.
Photo taken Friday, January 18, 2013
Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise

Photo: Guiseppe Barranco, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Ninth Court: GoDaddy gone from 'revenge porn' suit

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GoDaddy.com - an internet service provider that hosted a "revenge porn" website containing nude photos of several dozen local women - will be dismissed from a lawsuit brought by a Beaumont attorney, an appeals court ruled today.

Citing section 230 of the Communications Decency Act - a federal statute providing immunity for internet service providers - the Ninth Court of Appeals said that Judge Buddie Hahn's ruling should be amended in favor of GoDaddy, which effectively dismisses the ISP from the lawsuit.

"I respectfully disagree," said John Morgan, the Beaumont attorney who filed the lawsuit. "I'm going to apply for a petition for review to the Texas Supreme Court."

In January 2013, more than two dozen women filed suit against the administrators of the website Texxxan.com - and GoDaddy, the site's host - after nude or semi-nude photos of the women appeared on the website without their permission. Several Orange County residents were named in legal documents as the site's administrators.

GoDaddy filed a motion seeking to be dismissed from the lawsuit, which Hahn denied on April 17. Almost one year later, that ruling has been overturned.

Lawyers representing GoDaddy could not be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, several states - California, New Jersey and Wisconsin - have criminalized revenge porn and several other state legislatures are considering similar legislation.

In Wisconsin, the act of publishing sexually explicit images without the subject's permission is now a felony carrying a maximum sentence of $10,000 in fines and three and a half years in prison.

No such legislation is currently up for discussion in Texas. In February, a Houston woman was awarded $500,000 in a civil revenge porn lawsuit.